A business mission statement is the backbone of your business and its success.  It can help explain what you do and who you do it for – which is an essential part of sharing your services with others.  If you’ve ever had a difficult time articulating who you are and what your business has to offer, a mission statement is your solution.

Whether you’ve already started your own business or you’re considering it, I’ve bet you’ve heard the phrase “mission statement” before. I bet you’ve even heard that it’s important and necessary for running a business.

Before I tell you why your business needs a Mission Statement, let me confess: I put off creating a mission statement for my own business.

In the midst of organizing my every day, juggling my responsibilities as a work at home mom and working on branding projects for clients, writing a mission statement ended up at the bottom of my to-do list.

I knew it was important, but other things felt more urgent.

I quickly realized that a mission statement truly is the core of a business.

Without one, it’s easy to feel your business moving in all different directions. So creating a mission statement became both urgent and important in order to build the backbone of my business.

Whether you’re a solopreneur or running a small business with a handful of employees, your mission statement informs the big picture of your business all the way to the smallest details.

A mission statement is the easiest way for you:

• to define your ideal client
• choose ideal products and services
• decide how your business will operate.

If you’re still unsure of the importance of a mission statement, here are five reasons a mission statement is essential to any business.

A Mission Statement Casts Vision for your Business

Like any business owner, there are values and goals that are the core behind my business. These values and goals are what my business is built on.

These are the values we discuss around the dinner table, the goals I dream of and the core of my business that we have prayed over.

But there is something to be said about writing those goals and values down in a clear and concise way.

Whenever something feels off within my business, I can check it against what I have written in my mission statement.

Having a mission statement set in place becomes a guard rail for your business.

If you’re ever unsure of a decision, a direction, or even a client for your business, referring back to a mission statement can be an easy gut check to decide whether or not that opportunity is in line with your mission. 

A Mission Statement Makes Decision Making Easier

A mission statement can also streamline the decision-making process. It helps decide which clients you work with, how you handle conflict and unexpected changes within a project time frame, and where you allocate money within your business.

When I have it in front of me, decisions that may have felt unclear can be gut checked against my mission statement for my business. A

mission statement is something that takes time to build and shouldn’t be built in 30 seconds because you need something on your about page (guilty- I’ve done it before, too!).

Writing a mission statement the right way will help it become the guiding light for your business.

It will take the guessing game out of things like: Should I offer this product? Should I work with this client? Should I attend this conference? Should I spend X amount on advertising here?

A Mission Statement Evaluates Your Business and Brand

A mission statement includes both the values and goals of a business, and therefore forces you to confront and measure how things are going.

By simplifying your values and goals into a mission statement, you are easily able to evaluate how your business is achieving goals and exemplifying those values.

If your business seems to be falling short, you can look at the process laid out in your mission statement. Adjustments can be made to what you are doing (or aren’t doing) or you can refine your mission statement as your business pivots.

Remembering that a mission statement is not infinite. You can tweak it at any time. Set time aside quarterly to revisit your mission statement and evaluate whether or not it is still “on brand” for the direction your business is headed.

Another way to look at your mission statement is to see it as a meter for improvement. Checking yourself, your professionalism, your projects and even your clients against your mission statement can help to continually improve your business and help it thrive.

A Mission Statement Aligns Your Business with Ideal Clients

About pages on websites are great, but not everyone is going to have the time to read a five paragraph excerpt about your business and how it came to be. As business owners, we should be able to articulate our mission in two minutes or less and, you guessed it, a mission statement is the easiest way to do that.

Before I rebranded my food blog, I often had a hard time articulating what my blog was about. I’d go to blogger meetups and conferences and have to explain my blog which left me fumbling for words and ending up with phrases like “it’s just a lifestyle blog” and “I write about a lot of things.”

Once I finally sat down to work on my rebrand and came up with a mission statement for my blog, it made explaining what I do and who I do it for a million times easier!

If you often have a hard time articulating what your blog or business is about, it could mean one of two things:

• you need a mission statement to clearly define who you are and what you do
• it could be time to rebrand completely

A mission statement does exactly that: it articulates what your business does and whom you do it for.

In one to three sentences, someone completely new to your brand can learn what you value, what you do, and how.

This clarity helps you in long run by attracting like-minded clients. They are aware of what you do and how you do it, in as clear of language as possible before they even solicit your services.

This particular point is so important to remember. If everything you do (social media, blog posts, even your client gifts) is in line with your mission statement, then even people who find you (but aren’t even looking for your service at this time) will already be in line with your mission before they’re even your client.

This makes it SO much easier to turn blog or social media followers into clients down the road.

Having a mission statement in place can make it much easier to turn social media followers into clients down the road, because everything is on the same page.

An example of what defining a value can do for your client experience down the road: 

If family time and office hours are something you value in your business, but that is not a part of any core values or mission statement, you may have clients who email you at all times of the day and expect immediate responses. 

By setting the standard of communication for your client, you are enforcing those core values that are lined out in your mission statement. 

A Mission Statement Defines Your Process and Standard

A mission statement does not just declare what your mission is as a business. It also explains how you plan to accomplish those goals. Imagine if I told you that I was going to build you a house. Wouldn’t you want to know how I was going to go about it (especially since I am not an architect)?

If part of my mission statement is to do things with excellence then my clients will expect for things to be done right and for me to go above and beyond expectation. But almost more importantly, I will be held to the standard that I have now set in place for my work. 

Mission statements help both the client and the business. 

By defining your mission in words, a client or potential client will also be able to see how things work, what values your business holds and whether you are a good fit for working with their business.

Does you have a business mission statement?

If so, leave it in the comments! I’d love to read it.